An amendment is moving through the Senate Judiciary Committee that would essentially allow the government to determine who is a journalist for purposes of legal protection of sources. For purposes of protecting a source, a journalist under law would be anyone who: Works or worked for an entity or service that disseminates news or information by means of newspaper; nonfiction book; wire service; news agency; news website, mobile application or other news or information service news program; magazine or other periodical or through television or radio broadcast  These people would have to have the primary intent to investigate events and procure material in order to disseminate to the public news or information. Opinion journalists might not be covered.

Bloggers and citizen journalists  citizens who commit acts of journalists without working for such an outlet  would not be covered, unless it was determined that at the inception of the process of gathering the news or information sought, had the primary intent to investigate issues or events and procure material in order to disseminate to the public news or information. In other words, the government  the Department of Justice  would now determine whether primary intent was news distribution or political concerns.

There is no such thing as THE PRESS in the sense that term is used by elitist Progressives today  some sort of elite group whose members are allowed preferential treatment under law. In the Constitutional sense, the press is a technological device for disseminating information.

One cannot be a member of the press. One can only have access to a press.

Any device which enables one to state and publicize ones views is a press, whether it be moveable type, offset, TV, radio, or the Internet. We all have free access to the press, meaning we have the right to pay any provider who wishes to sell us access to publicize our ideas.

In this regard, no CBS anchor has anymore claim to special treatment for being part of the press than does any blogger.

Freedom of the press applies equally to every citizen seeking to use a technological device to record and publicize his or her opinion.

It’s a kind of news cartel of journalists assigned to each government ministry, and they have very stable membership lists over time.

The stated reason is to uphold standards and provide quality service, but naturally what happens is that politicians develop special relationships with the journalists covering them —the politician becomes 10% journo and the journo becomes 50% politician.

The relationship is close and can sometimes offer advantages, however most of the time it’s a huge impediment to breaking really important stories: he (it’s almost always a HE) will lose access if he doesn’t hold back crucial details, sometimes —the relationship will be damaged.

No huge political scandals in Japan are ever broken by “reputable” papers or magazines. Each press pool regularly meets in private and as a GROUP they decide what pieces of info are worthy of publication.

The hot, important political stories are broken by what by Japanese standards would be considered, “The National Enquirer”, or more accurately, the black-and-white “Space Baby Found In Watermelon” rags we have next to the registers.

So apparently The Regime wants to set up a more cartelized media that is closed to the likes of FR, etc.

The system they want is anti-market and the TRUTH will suffer —this makes sense for a gummint run by a Gay Muslim who smuggles machine-guns and missiles when he is not (expensively) vacationing.

It strikes me that we are on dangerous territory if we are drawing distinctions that are treating some engaged in the process of reporting and journalism better than others. If we are advantaging those who happen to receive a paycheck from a corporate media entity over those who happen to be citizens .I for one would have deep troubles with legislation from Congress saying we will grant special privileges if you happen to work for a corporate media interest .It seems to me the First Amendment protects the activity, not the employment status of the person engaging in it.

Once again, Cruz is on our side in We The People v. Washington D.C. Elitists. Do they even have a clue that the Angry Mob is gathering ahead of 2014.

21
posted on 09/13/2013 5:32:31 PM PDT
by BuckeyeTexan
(There are those that break and bend. I'm the other kind. ~Steve Earle)

The point of this legislation is to go after the sources who leak classified or sensitive information to other than “corporate media.”

IIRC, Fast & Furious was leaked to Legal Insurrection and another non-corporate news site. (Correct me if I’m wrong, MM.) This bill is intended to prevent non-standard news distribution sites from being able to protect their sources.

The unintended consequences, however, of legally distinguishing traditional corporate media from citizen journalists could be disastrous and used by this administration to target their political opponents as happened with the IRS targeting of Tea Party organizations.

23
posted on 09/13/2013 5:47:25 PM PDT
by BuckeyeTexan
(There are those that break and bend. I'm the other kind. ~Steve Earle)

Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe that in the writings of the Founders they envisioned the press as being the watchdogs of government.Today we have a revolving door between the Obama administration and "journalism", with 21 reported journalists now officially work for Obama. And now Congress proposes to be the watchdogs of journalism.God help us and God save the republic.

Richard Stengel, the top editor of Time magazine for the past seven years, is planning to step down as managing editor for a new job at the U.S. Department of State, sources familiar with the situation tell POLITICO and Capital New York.

The First Amendment right to free speech was meant to protect the rights of pamphleteers. Today’s “pamphleteers” are bloggers. The sick and very scary thing is that America is one Supreme Court vote away from big government tyranny; from Nazi America.

23. We demand laws to fight against deliberate political lies and their dissemination
by the press. In order to make it possible to create a German press, we demand:
a) all editors and editorial employees of newspapers appearing in the German
language must be German by race;

b) non-German newspapers require express permission from the State for
their publication. They may not be printed in the German language;

c) any financial participation in a German newspaper or influence on such a
paper is to be forbidden by law to non-Germans and the penalty for any
breech of this law will be the closing of the newspaper in question, as well
as the immediate expulsion from the Reich of the non-Germans involved.
Newspapers which violate the public interest are to be banned. We
demand laws against trends in art and literature which have a destructive
effect on our national life, and the suppression of performances that offend
against the above requirements.

” Yeah, cuz the only ones who really question the Administration is people like Matt Drudge, who used to be a gift-shop clerk, and now runs a HIGHLY effective, (almost) one-man operation.”

You forgot to preface that with “the conservative “ Matt Drudge. Apparently if you report anything unflattering about the left you are a dreaded conservative. I’ve seen a lot of his headlines about the right and the left. They can’t stand that.

48
posted on 09/13/2013 7:32:31 PM PDT
by Lurkina.n.Learnin
(If global warming exists I hope it is strong enough to reverse the Big Government snowball)

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